teaquaffer

I don't follow- what do you mean?

I've found that a lot of times there _is_ a little switch in my head. Every once in a while I'll be banging my head against a problem, but if I stop and ask myself "how would a physicist solve this?" I can figure it out.

It takes an effort for me to step back and ask myself what the problem is, rather than just sitting down and working on it.

Usually "just sitting down and working on it" works, which may mean my problems are too easy. :)

Try reading it as an adjective with an understood noun, kind of in the spirit of an "understood subject."

Is the problem that you spend to much time online, or that you don't like what you're working on?

How about other Google services, gmail, documents, etc. ?

No errors, no problems. Reader was fine this morning, and last night too. I'm running Firefox. Are you running anything like greasemonkey? Anything that would modify the results? Can you try another browser?

>Was it Durkheim who said that the first purpose of any large organization is to perpetuate itself, and only secondarily to accomplish whatever mandate it may have?

I'm not sure about Durkheim, but I am a big fan of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy: "Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions."

(http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2view/view40...)

My 6 year old neighbor keeps getting in trouble for asking questions in school. His dad asked the teacher, "aren't you supposed to ask questions?" The teacher's response: "I don't like being questioned."

A lot of people are horrified by this idea. I'm not sure it bothers me. I think market forces will let it sink or swim. If channel 1 has forced ads, and channel 2 doesn't, then channel 1 better be a lot more interesting, or I won't watch it. It just isn't that hard to flip channels or stumble elsewhere on the web.

But where is the gulf between Mac and PC?

For Linux and Mac/PC, the gulf might be where SuSE went. I liked SuSE, but once Novel bought them it seems like they tried to move toward Pop and slid into the "gulf".

So, PC on one peak, Ubuntu on the other, and Slackware far to the left?

It's a map of Neurotic People. "based on data on hundreds of thousands of people compiled by psychologists, Jason Rentfrow at Cambridge University and Sam Gosling at the University of Texas" From a book called Who's Your City, by Dr. Richard Florida. More maps here: http://creativeclass.typepad.com/thecreativityexchange/2008/...